"The idea for the the Ladies and Gentlemen series (consisting of images of drag queens) came from a protegeé of art dealer Alexander Iolas named Anselmino, who had previously commissioned Warhol to do an edition of one hundred prints of Warhol's Man Ray portrait. When Warhol went to Torino to sign the prints, Anselmino suggested he do a series of drag queens, suggesting portraits of Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling - not realizing that Candy Darling was dead. Instead, Warhol used models found at the The Gilded Grape on West 45th Street, frequented by black and Hispanic transvestites." warholstars.org

Warhol created this and one other image as studies for the series of ten.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is widely credited as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. After studying design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Warhol moved to New York in 1949 to pursue a career as a commercial artist. Though successful, Warhol wanted to be an independent painter. In the early 1960s he began creating paintings based on advertising imagery. He established his own studio, The Factory, and developed his signature style, employing commercial silkscreening techniques to create identical, mass-produced images on canvas. With his multiple images of soup cans, soda bottles, dollar bills and celebrities, Warhol revealed the beauty within mass culture and redefined the art world.

Selected Public Collections:
The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY)
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY)
Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY)
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA)
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
Tate Gallery (London, UK)
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)